.TH tbl\-dctrl 1 2006-04-02 "Debian Project" "Debian administrator's manual"
\" Copyright (C) 2005, 2010  Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho <ajk@debian.org>
\"      This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
\"      it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
\"      the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
\"      (at your option) any later version.
\" 
\"      This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
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\"      MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
\"      GNU General Public License for more details. 
\"  
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\"      the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
\"      Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
.SH NAME
tbl\-dctrl \- generate tabular representations of data in dctrl format
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B tbl\-dctrl
[
.I options
] [
.B \-c
.IR column\-specification " ..."
]
[
.I filename
] ...
.sp
.B tbl\-dctrl
.B \-\-version
.sp
.B tbl\-dctrl
.B \-\-help
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B tbl\-dctrl
creates tabular representations of data given to it in Debian control
file format.
.PP
By default,
.B tbl\-dctrl
reads the whole database, looking for the longest entry in each
requested column; it then outputs a table, with borders and column
titles, where each column is just wide enough to fit the longest
entry.
.
Most of this behaviour can be customized as described below.
.PP
A column is requested by specifying the
.BR \-c " (" \-\-column )
switch with a column specification.
.
The simplest kind of a column specification consists solely of the name
of a field.
.
In such a case,
.B tbl\-dctrl
will include in the output a column whose title is the literal column
specification and whose data is drawn from fields with that name.
.
If no
.B \-c
options are given,
.B tbl\-dctrl
will use all fields in the input in the order in which they first appear.
.PP
There are two optional additions one can make to a column
specification.
.
Prefixing the field name with some text followed by an equality sign
(for example,
.BR "\-c 'Package name=Package'" )
modifies the column in such a way that the text before the equality
sign is used as the column title, while the text after the equality
sign is used as the name of the field from which data is drawn.
.
One can also append a colon followed by a positive whole number to the
field name.  In such a case, the number after the colon specifies the
width of the column.
.
These two additions can be used separately or together.
.
If there are more than one colon, the last one is significant.
.
If there are more than one equals sign, the first one is significant.
.
Other colons and equals signs are used simply as data.
.
Note that the whole column specification must be given to
.B tbl\-dctrl
as one argument, so if it contains spaces, it must be quoted for the
shell.
.PP
If all requested columns have a specified width,
.B tbl\-dctrl
will produce output immediately, not waiting for the whole input to be
read in.
.SH OPTIONS
.IP "\fB\-d \fIdelimiter\fR, \fB\-\-delimiter=\fIdelimiter"
Instead of drawing nice borders to the table, use the specified
.I delimiter
string to delimit columns in a row.
.IP "\fB\-H\fR, \fB\-\-no\-heading
Do not print a table heading (column titles).
.IP "\fB\-l \fIlevel\fR, \fB\-\-errorlevel=\fIlevel"
Set log level to
.IR level .
.I level
is one of
.BR fatal ", " important ", " informational " and " debug ,
but the last may not be available,
depending on the compile-time options.  These categories are given
here in order; every message that is emitted when
.B fatal
is in effect, will be emitted in the
.B important
error level, and so on. The default is
.BR important .
.TP
.BR \-V ", " \-\-version
Print out version information.
.TP
.BR \-C ", " \-\-copying
Print out the copyright license.  This produces much output; be sure
to redirect or pipe it somewhere (such as your favourite pager).
.TP
.BR \-h ", " \-\-help
Print out a help summary.
.SH OPERANDS
.B tbl\-dctrl
will read its input from the files named on the command line,
in the specified order.
.
A file called
.B \-
represents the program's standard input stream.
.
If no files are named, the program behaves as if
.B \-
alone had been named, that is, input is read from the standard input
stream.
.SH STDIN
The standard input stream may be used as input as specified above in
the
.B OPERANDS
section.
.SH "INPUT FILES"
All input to
.B tbl\-dctrl
is in the format of a Debian control file.
.PP
A Debian control (dctrl) file is a semistructured single-table
database stored in a machine-parseable text file.
.
Such a database consists of a set of records; each record is a mapping
from field names to field content.
.
Textually, records are separated by empty lines, while each field is
encoded as one or more nonempty lines inside a record.
.
A field starts with its name, followed by a colon, followed by the
field content.
.
The colon must reside on the first line of the field, and the first
line must start with no whitespace.
.
Subsequent lines, in contrast, always start with linear whitespace
(one or more space or tab characters).
.PP
When input is read from multiple files, a record separator is implicit
between two adjacent files.
.SH "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES"
The standard locale environment, specifically its character set
setting, affects the interpretation of input and output as character
streams.
.SH "ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS"
Standard UNIX signals have their usual meaning.
.SH STDOUT
All output is sent to the standard output stream.
.
The output is a tabular representation of the input database restricted
to the specified fields.  Logically, the output is a table; when the
.B \-d
option is used, this table is represented simply by separating columns
in each row by the specified
.IR delimiter ;
when the option is not used, a
frame is drawn around the table.  The order of the columns is the same
as the order of the column specifications on the command line.
.SH "OUTPUT FILES"
There are no output files.
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
This utility exits with
.B 0
when successful.  It uses a nonzero exit
code inconsistently when an error is noticed (this is a bug).
.SH "CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS"
In case of errors in the input, the output will be partially or
completely garbage.  In case of errors in invocation, the program will
refuse to function.
.SH "EXAMPLES"
The following command line pipe outputs a table of all packages, with
their maintainer data, sorted by the maintainer data, that have no
content:
.nf
% grep\-available \-FInstalled\-Size \-\-eq 0 | sort\-dctrl \-kMaintainer \- \\
  | tbl\-dctrl \-cPackage \-cMaintainer
.fi
.SH AUTHOR
The
.B tbl\-dctrl
program and this manual page were written by Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR apt\-cache (1),
.BR ara (1),
.BR dpkg\-awk (1),
.BR dpkg\-query (1),
.BR grep\-dctrl (1),
.BR sort\-dctrl (1),
.BR dpkg (8)

